YuYu Hakusho Volume 14 ~ review

Here's my review for the manga YuYu Hakusho Volume 14. Spoilers alert! If you haven't read this, please be aware that this review will contain spoilers.

A lot of revelations in this volume of YuYu Hakusho. First, readers were re-introduced to the people that abducted Yuusuke in Volume 13; Asato Kido, Mitsunari Yanagisawa and Yuu Kaito. They are not the bad guys and it was actually Genkai (Yuusuke's mentor) who asked them to abduct Yuusuke to test their powers. Then it was revealed that someone had been trying to break the spell surrounding the borders between the human world and the demon world and create a hole between them. If the spell breaks and the hole was created, then demons can easily enter the human world and create chaos. Then Yuusuke and the team found out that "someone" who was trying to break the spell is actually a group of 7 people. Yuusuke team managed to defeat two of them; "Doctor" who can infect other people with deadly virus, and "Seaman" who can manipulate water with a drop of his blood. Finally, it was revealed to Yuusuke team that the leader of this group (and the main villain of this story arc) is Sensui, the former detective of the Underworld, which is the role that Yuusuke currently held. In the last chapter of this volume, Yuusuke finally came face-to-face with Sensui but can he defeat him? The last 3 members of Sensui's team were also revealed with code names "Sniper", "Gobbler" and "Game Master" (another member "Gate Keeper" had been introduced to readers in the first chapter of this volume).

I was satisfied with this volume of YuYu Hakusho because it was balanced between dialogue scenes and action scenes. I like the fight scenes between Yuusuke's team and "Doctor" who seems a bit psychotic. I also like the introduction of a video tape called "Black Chapter" which Sensui used to recruit members to his team. The story behind the video tape brings a bit of a dark aspect to the manga which I love. Another scenes that I love is the backstory of Sensui told by Koenma and why he changed from being a good guy into a bad guy. It somehow made readers sympathetic towards Sensui and shows that he is not just a regular villain who wants to take over the world but someone with a dark past that somehow changed him into who he was today.

It will truly become more intense in Volume 15 as Yuusuke team try to find out the location of Sensui's hideout. Can they defeat him and prevent the hole between the two worlds from being created? All will be revealed in YuYu Hakusho Volume 15.

Image from Amazon.

Fear Factor Celebrity Malaysia ~ 1st impression

Last night was the very first episode of Fear Factor Celebrity Malaysia (Fear Factor Selebriti Malaysia in Malay) which aired on Astro Ria. Hosted by Aaron Aziz, the show which was shot in Cape Town, South Africa, will see 30 celebrity contestants paired in 15 two-member groups compete to win RM200,000. Additional to that, it was also revealed that each pair who win any of the challenges will take away RM10,000. That's a lot of money! So how do I feel about this show?

At first I thought the show started a bit abrupt. I mean the host welcomed the contestants and they immediately start the 1st challenge, without any introduction on the contestants. But then I realized it was better that way, in which they introduced the contestants before each of the team start the challenge. It will be much more efficient that way instead of introducing all the contestants in the beginning and only show the challange in the 2nd half of the show, that would definitely dragged the show down.

The host, Aaron Aziz, seemed a bit formal at first but luckily he got more loosened up after 2 or 3 teams finished their challanges. And the contestants also seemed more alive as more teams finished their turns. But I was a bit unhappy by the comments made by the contestants about their rival teams' personality (like how they react when Iz and Roslan Shah were performing their challenges) and their rivals' physical appearances (Dafi, Elfira Loy and Zoey were the victims of such comments). They may be friends and wouldn't mind for such comments but as an audience, I thought it was a bit rude. There is a fine line between being competitive and being rude, and I think the contestants should be more careful on that.

K-pop Girl groups ~ My Favourite for 2012

Gangnam Style seems to conquer the world in 2012 but when it comes to K-pop, my favourite has to be the girl groups. So it's time for me to look back and see which are some of the best songs of 2012 by them. Here I present you my top 6 favourite K-pop girl groups of 2012 based on their songs. Let the countdown begins.

6) Girls' Generation ~ All My Love Is For You

Girls' Generation is a popular girl group which I believe need no introduction. The nine-members group; Jessica, Hyoyeon, Sunny, Yuri, Sooyoung, Taeyeon, Tiffany, Seohyun and Yoona; has been very successful worldwide that they had been dubbed as South Korea's national group. I love their songs like Gee, Oh! and Hoot, but I found myself a bit less interested in their newer songs like Mr. Taxi and Paparazzi. But their 2012 Japanese song, All My Love Is For You, had caught my attention. It's a powerful and wonderful song, almost like a ballad to me, that captured my heart from the very first time I listened to it. With a song like this, Girls' Generation managed to prove that they are not just relying on catchy pop tracks and dance moves but also on their vocal talent to captivate fans.

Watch All My Love Is For You

5) KARA ~ Pandora and Electric Boy

KARA, which composed of Gyuri, Seungyeon, Nicole, Goo Hara and Jiyoung, is very popular in Japan, so I guess that is why they had been very active in Japan releasing a studio album, two singles and one compilation album there. Electric Boy, one of the single released in Japan, had been my favourite Japanese song by them. It's an upbeat song and the music video retained their cute and girly image just like in their Step music video, which happens to be my favourite KARA song so far. On the other hand, their Korean effort Pandora featured a more mature image of them. It sounded less cheerful compared to Electric Boy but it still gives you an upbeat tempo that will keep you singing along in no time.

Watch Pandora
Watch Electric Boy

Final Fantasy X ~ review

I was a little late in discovering the amazing world of Final Fantasy video game series as I was only introduced to Final Fantasy VIII during my teenage years. But it was Final Fantasy X that became the first game in the Final Fantasy series that I had completed playing. To finally finish a game that I had only managed to adore from afar before, it was truly a satisfying feeling.

Final Fantasy X is a role-playing video game by then Squaresoft (now known as Square Enix) released in 2001 for the PlayStation 2. It was the first game in the series to introduced voice-acting. The game was a critical and commercial success and had sold millions worldwide, which then lead Square to release the first direct-sequel in the series, Final Fantasy X-2.

Final Fantasy X (FFX) is set in a troubled world called Spira, and follows the main protaganist, Tidus, as he became one of the guardian to a summoner, Yuna, as the group traveled Spira on a pilgrimage to obtained aeons and in the end to destroy Sin, a montrous creature that had been creating chaos across Spira. The group also consists of other iconic characters which are Wakka, Lulu, Kimahri, Auron and Rikku.

Let's start dissecting FFX with its plot. Story-wise, FFX has a very complex story that are quite hard to follow or understand if you do not really paying attention to what the characters are saying during the cutscenes or gameplay. But that not to say that the story is bad, in fact it was rich, entertaining and satisfying. Since the plot deals with the theme of death and a glimmer of hope, the atmosphere of the story are quite gloomy and sad,  which you can immediately feel from the start of the game at the start menu. But it's not melodramatic all the way to the end. To be fair, there are some cheerful moments throughout the game and some pretty good action cutscenes but overall, it is a game with a sad story.

Silent Hill: Revelation 3D ~ review

Silent Hill: Revelation 3D is a horror film released on 26th October 2012 in the US and some other markets like Malaysia. It is a sequel to the 2006 video-game adaptation horror film, Silent Hill and loosely based on the video game, Silent Hill 3. It is directed by Michael J. Bassett and starred Adelaide Clemens, Kit Harington, Carrie-Anne Moss, Sean Bean, Radha Mitchell, Deborah Kara Unger and Malcolm McDowell.

This review is spoiler-free so you do not need to worry if you haven't watch the film yet. ;-)

Silent Hill: Revelation 3D is by no means a better film than its predecessor. There are a lot of room for improvement but it does have a few things that I like. Let's start with the plot. While it is not strong, the plot for this movie is still quite good and most importantly, easy to understand. That is a huge success in itself because Silent Hill video games can have quite a confusing plot with different layer of interpretation which can be hard to be translated onto the silver screen. But with easy explanation from key characters in the film, viewers especially those who are not fans of the video games can find the plot not so confusing.

The acting, while there are no stand-outs, they are not bad either. Adelaide Clemens did a good job as Heather Mason and Kit Harington was quite good too as Vincent. Sean Bean, needles to say, is a great actor but viewers won't be seeing much of him since his character were not featured much in the plot. I love Radha Mitchell so seeing her in the movie although just as a cameo, was a good treat for me, and it also brings back memories of the first movie. But some characters were underused like the main villain Claudia Wolf (played by Carrie-Anne Moss) and Douglas Cartland (played by Martin Donovan).

The special effects, for the most part, were spectacular, but I must say that it was a bit inconsistent. There are some effects which I thought were quite poorly executed and should not be included in the movie. But others like the effects during the transition from the fog world to the Otherworld were great. As for the 3D effects, since I did not watch the movie in 3D, there was not much to say about it.

The soundtrack is the best part of the movie. I think it was quite the same or maybe a rework version with the one from the video games (I would guess Silent Hill 3), but I'm not quite sure. The soundtrack brings out the creepiness and mysterious side of Silent Hill which I think are much needed by this movie. I also noted that the timing for the music was almost perfect. There's a scene in the film when the soundtrack suddenly stopped playing and I thought to myself that it was the perfect silence for the scene.

I was quite disappointed though when the movie became more action-oriented at the end. I feel like it could have been handled differently but still give viewers the tormented and twisted Silent Hill that it is known for. The heavy-action element was irrelevant and somewhat takes away the psychological horror Silent Hill is all about. 

Although Silent Hill: Revelation 3D is not prefect, it is still a good effort in bringing the world of Silent Hill to the mainstream audience. I also feel like the franchise could still grow, and interestingly enough, the end of the movie also hinted to not just one, but two possible plot that the next movie could take. Hopefully, this movie will not be the last of the franchise in movieland.

Images from Wikipedia and the movie official website.